exile from Moscow. Tolstoy and Chekhov had homes in Yalta.

It was on the southern Crimean coast that Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra, the last Romanov rulers of Russia, in 1911 built a lovely Italian Neo-Renaissance palace, in Livadiya, west of Yalta. Modest in size, yet situated with a commanding view of the coast and surrounded by lush gardens, it was their favorite home.

This palace was the venue chosen by Stalin to host Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the famous Yalta
Conference, in February 1945. It was at this meeting that the division of Europe into spheres of influence was decided - establishing the geo-strategic framework for what became the Cold War conflict that dominated the latter half of the 20th Century.

But it is Sevastopol, founded as a Russian city in 1783, which carries with it a heavy burden of the region's history. As a city built around a natural harbor, it was the focus of warring armies. In 1804, Sevastopol became the main naval port on the Black Sea for the Russian Empire. In Soviet times, it served a similarly important role for Moscow (while Odessa was of greater importance for the merchant marine.)

Today, both offspring of the Soviet navy (which was divided between Ukraine and Russia after the collapse of the USSR)

One of the fascinating things about the place today is the strange juxtaposition of Tsarist memorabilia and family pictures with those of a world-shaping meeting among three of the great figures of the last century. Visitors are also offered a wide range of souvenirs to buy in what must be some of the loveliest gift shops on earth. Also, there is a lovely chapel attached to the palace where services are held.

Further west along the coast from the Livadia Palace there is the Vorontsov Palace, built by Count Mikhail Vorontsov - hero of the 1812 war against Napoleon. It was designed by British Architect Edward Blore, who had completed Buckingham Palace in London. Blore never went to Crimea, but is credited with having designed a structure that sat beautifully between the mountains and the sea.

Located in the village of Alupka, the Vorontsov Palace was built in stages between 1828 and 1846. The Western side of the building has been described as Scottish Baronial, while the eastern side, facing the sea, has a Persian façade with an Arabic inscription. From this side, steps flanked by six lions in various poses lead through lovely gardens towards the sea.


During the Yalta conference this palace was home to Churchill and the British delegation, and in its magnificent wood-paneled dining room Churchill hosted a dinner for Roosevelt and Stalin. (The American delegation was housed at the Livadia Palace.)

It was on the Crimean coast that Mikhail Gorbachev was resting when a coup was mounted against him in Moscow. His red-roofed villa can be seen as you drive west along the coast from Yalta, on the road to Sevastopol.

Crimea was settled by the Greeks as early as the fifth and sixth centuries BC, as they sought new lands to settle around the shores of the Black Sea. They maintained a presence in the area for a millennium. A truncated form of the Greek polis still forms part of

make Sevastopol their home, with Moscow paying an annual leaseof $98 million for the privilege of using the Ukrainian port facilities.

But it was during the 1853-56 Crimean War that Sevastopol first took on great military significance. It was the key Russian naval stronghold in a war against the Ottoman Empire, supported by Britain, France and Sardinia. (The cause of the war was the so-called Eastern Question: whether Russia and the Orthodox Church, on the one hand, or West European countries and the Catholic Church, on the other, would control Christian communities and properties, including the holy sites in Jerusalem, within the Ottoman Empire.)

The Russians held out in Sevastopol for 349 days. Two attempts to relieve the besieged city failed. The first became known as the Battle of Balaklava, made famous by Tennyson's poem that memorialized the charge of the Light Brigade. Due to a misunderstood command, 670 British cavalrymen rode right into the Russian defensive position, where they were slaughtered by well-positioned Russian guns on the heights. Of some 670 who started the charge, only 195 survived with their horses. Balaklava was a small town with a superb natural harbor, just 14 miles east of Sevastopol, hidden from that city by a ridge. The Genoese, who once controlled the Crimean coast, had built a strong fort at the entrance to the harbor, taking advantage of the natural defenses, and the British had now stationed their fleet there. The Russians wanted to force the British out, and relieve Sevastopol from the east.

Despite the failed British cavalry charge, the allies prevailed. And a second attempt by the Russians to relieve the siege of
Sevastopol, at the battle of Inkerman, also met with failure.

Today, the Valley of Death, as Tennyson called it, is home to vineyards that run peacefully down the sloping hills where once